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Why Anderson Cooper Owes You Nothing

As most of you know, June is typically the month of Gay Pride for most places throughout the United States. My feelings on Pride can be adequately summed up here, here, here and here.

With the national spotlight on LGBTQs, it doesn’t take long for the bigotry to commence from many racist white gays, buffoonery from attention whores, homophobia and heterosexism from too many so-called straight “allies.” Suffice to say for the month of June, I’m usually in this mode here:

And already it appears that this year will be no different, for reasons that are about to be clear. For the past couple of months, the debate has emerged once again as to whether or not Anderson Cooper is gay and if he is then he is under some obligation to come out of the closet.[RED LANTERN RAGE RISING: POINTS BACK TO CASTIEL MACRO OF CUTE NERDY ANGEL RAGE]

This just in: Anderson Cooper owes you nothing! He has the God-given right to live his life as he sees fit and FUCK YOU for thinking and stating otherwise.

I don’t care if this pic is photoshopped, I will take a bound and gagged Anderson Cooper any way I can get him.

Personally I don’t know what his orientation is and quite frankly I don’t give a fuck. Actually, that’s a damn lie. Because his orientation is a news story I’d be all too happy to go undercover(s) for and and get to the bottom of. Because as far as Cooper’s sexy ass goes, gay or straight, he can tap it any day that ends in Y.

If Cooper was in the closet and attacking gays (like the legions upon legions of Log Cabin Republicans and gay conservatives), that would be one thing. THEN he would be fair game as far as I’m concerned. But he hasn’t. In fact he’s been doing a lot of good bringing attention to bullying and homophobia in our culture.

But Cooper being out and proud would do so many wonders for SOOOOOOOOO many people.

Like giving you gay fetishists another accessory to pine over? Did it ever occur to any of you bastards that maybe why he’s doing a series of stories on bullied gay youth is because he can do more good (sadly) being in the closet and bringing awareness to this issue as a presumed straight man rather than getting dismissed like the gay with an agenda like too many of us are already?

And speaking of Cooper’s career, you think the military is the only place that has the DADT policy? It’s everywhere. It’s just unspoken. As accomplished and exemplary as a journalist Mr. Cooper is, chances are his career would be over the second he came out of the closet. Not only that, but as someone else accurately pointed out, Cooper earned his fame as an international reporter/correspondent, and many of the countries he reported from have laws punishing homosexuality with jail time, beatings, or death. Were he to come out, he would be very limited in what he was able to do.

You think it’s a random happenstance why there are so few portrayals of LGBTQs in the media and that the majority of them are avatars of straight privilege? You think it’s sheer coincidence that so many high-profile celebrities, politicians, athletes and other major figures remain in the closet by any means necessary? Being invisible is part of being an LGBTQ. For many of us that’s the only way we’ve been able to survive. And contrary to popular opinion, cis-gendered, heterosexual IS NOT the default and being invisible in a society that forces you to do so, does not negate who you are.

Some choose not to be out because of necessity. Some choose not to be out because quite frankly, it’s no one else’s gawd damn business.

Cooper is a grown ass man and I think he knows best what decisions work best for him and doesn’t need to be dictated to how he should live his life. And you have to appreciate the irony and the hypocrisy here. Last I checked, the whole point of the gay rights struggle was for people to have the right to live their lives as they see fit. Isn’t that what we’re constantly griping about straights and conservatives, policing how we live our lives? And we can’t even afford that much respect to this man.

But cis-straight people will only accept us when we are honest and open about who we are?

REALLY?!!!! REALLY?!!!!!! Because being a visible minority ALWAYS goes over so well in this society. I’ve been out and proud as a visible Negro. We see how well that’s worked for me and mine for the past 400+ years in this country alone. We’ve also seen how well that’s worked for those who are visibly out. Ask Emille Griffith, Lawrence King, Duanna Johnson and Matthew Shepard and all the other heroes and heroines what being visible gets you.

What’s really disheartening is that he’s catching this much shade from so many members of the LGBTQ “community.” This also goes back to what I’ve stated previously in that while I continue to fight for LGBTQ rights, I got no use for the LGBTQ community reasons listed in the links above. But what really pisses me off is that too often, the main perpetrators of this bullshit are speshul white womynz with the gay boy fetish. Because this bullshit here is by no means an isolated incident. It’s actually becoming the norm with each day.

It isn’t enough that they appropriate and police our identity, experiences and culture with fail after fail after fail but now they think they can fucking police our lives. Let me be abundantly clear, you lot aren’t doing us any favors. In fact, you’re part of the problem. You’re no allies to me and mine. In fact, most of us HATE YOU! And your shitty Livejournal fanfiction too.

This is also why more and more, I prefer rolling in POC-ran fandom spaces. Not to say that there isn’t privilege or fail or that POCs aren’t magically infallible, but it’s a far cry from the bullshit I see too often on most white dominated fandom/social justice spaces. Case in point. The spaces I run in, have countless WOC who love gay boys and hawt m/m action as much as white fangirls do. And as I’ve said before, I’ll never begrudge anyone for enjoying hawt man on man action. The difference however is, most of them don’t have that warped sense of entitlement that white privilege tends to bring. They also understand boundaries and treat queer peeps with the same humanity and respect that they wish to be treated with.

The bottom line, no one has the right to police queer people (actual or suspected) on being out and how to identify. In doing so, not only does it prove that you know nothing about gay rights, but you’re also a part of the oppression.

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23 thoughts on “Why Anderson Cooper Owes You Nothing”

I had to wikipedia Anderson Cooper to find out who he is. I’m still not sure if I precisely know.

I’ve seen it time and time again. It does boil down to as long as they’re not being hypocritical bigots, as long as they’re not causing harm, I don’t think a person’s sexuality is anyone’s business but their own.

It’s horrible when people are hounded to tell the media that they’re gay. What business is it of anyone’s?

The whole subject makes me angry.

Just as the whole push to be out and proud makes me terribly sad.

I want to say thank you for writing this. Thank you for writing your other posts you have in the past about defending people’s rights to remain in the closet.

Is it just me, or is Anderson Cooper the dead spit of Gary Lineker? I was in the pub the other day, and I was like “what is Anderson Cooper doing on British TV talking about sports?” (ok, I may have been a little tipsy)

“If Cooper was in the closet and attacking gays (like the legions upon legions of Log Cabin Republicans and gay conservatives), that would be one thing. THEN he would be fair game as far as I’m concerned.”

Really? Is it OK to disrespect someone’s privacy if their opinion is “bad”? Is it OK to cause harm to someone if /they/ cause harm to other people?

In this case “exposing their hypocrisy” means disrespecting their privacy in a way that probably will mess up their (the hypothetical anti-QTBLG yet homosexual person) lives a lot. Since their bullshit could just as effectively be refuted if they were heterosexual, outing them is far from necessary, and definitely not justified.

Well it’s so wonderful that you care about their privacy and their lives. Too bad that same sentiment isn’t passed to LGBTQs who can’t even serve in the military or get married or do what else in their private lives.

And are you really telling LGBTQs how not to combat institutional oppression?

It’s not as much that I care about the Ted Haggards of the world as that I oppose the belief that it’s OK to treat people badly as long as they are bad people.

But I don’t know. Even if it means using oppression against QTBGLs to advance the goals of QTBGLs, maybe outing a conservative really is an effective means of survival for QTBGLs in the US. Then I guess the notion of respect for privacy is quite expendable in comparison.

When you have closeted people, in positions of power, who are actively fighting to deny GLBTQ people what should be basic human rights, when they spew out homophobic bile, why the hell shouldn’t they be called out on their hypocrisy?

When they’re preaching about how we shouldn’t have sex, then hiring rent-boys themselves, why should they have any expectation of privacy? If they’ve the right to tell us how to live our lives, why the hell should their lives be sacrosanct?

Why should they have the right to privacy when they seek to deny us of our rights?

Does being homophobic while homosexual necessarily imply hypocrisy? And why do you think hypocrisy matters?

(And yes I honestly believe these things aren’t self-explanatory.)

To me, your questions are non-sequiturs. I don’t see how it is OK to harm someone, for example by invading their privacy, as long as they are bad people. Especially in the sort of situation we are talking about, since outing a homosexual homophobe is completely unecessary. (Also it adds fuel to various straight people who want to believe that homophobes are all closet homosexuals so they don’t have to feel categorical accountability.)

It doesn’t matter what it means to you and common sense falling outside your purview in calling out bullshit and hypocrisy has no place in this discussion which you are attempting to derail something fierce.

And this isn’t as simple as gay vs. straight. This is about battling institutional oppression which often includes those with internalized hate and privilege oppressing others.

And while I’m glad that you show more concern for the Ted Haggards of the world than the Emillle Griffiths or the Matthew Shepards, you can seriously stop trolling now.

No, you’re not “looking far too abstractly on this issue” – you’re showing your privilege and being a jackass. You clearly have no respect for this blog or the reason why it was set up, so you should probably leave.

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